5.9 The 1960s begin
Perhaps no decade is so immortalized in American memory as the 1960s. Couched in the colorful rhetoric of peace and love, complemented by stirring images of the Civil Rights Movement, and fondly remembered for its music, art, and activism, the decade brought many people hope for a more inclusive, forward-thinking nation. But the decade was also plagued by strife, tragedy, and chaos. It was the decade of the Vietnam War, inner-city riots, and assassinations that seemed to symbolize the crushing of a new generation’s idealism. A decade of struggle and disillusionment rocked by social, cultural, and political upheaval, the 1960s are remembered because so much changed, and because so much did not.
Cuba
Nationalist forces were in ferment in Latin America, where only 2% of the people controlled 75% of the land. Repressive dictatorships exercised power, and foreign interests dominated Latin American economies. Similar economic tensions were reflected in Cuba, where the United States owned 80% of the country’s utilities and operated a major naval base at Guantanamo Bay (see the Spanish American War). Cuban dictator, Fulgencio Batista had close ties to both the US government and to major crime figures who operated gambling, prostitution, and drug rings in Havana.
A disgruntled, middle-class lawyer, Fidel Castro, gained the support of impoverished peasants in Cuba’s mountains, and in January 1959, drove Batista from power. At first many Americans applauded the revolution, welcoming Castro when he visited the United States. President Eisenhower, though, was distinctly cool to the cigar-smoking Cuban, who dressed in green military fatigues and sported a full beard.
By summer 1959, Castro had filled key government positions with communists, launched a sweeping agricultural reform, and confiscated American properties. Retaliating, Eisenhower embargoed Cuban sugar and mobilized opposition to Castro in other Latin American countries. Cut off from American markets and aid, Castro did what many newly independent countries found themselves doing, he turned to the US’s opponent in the Cold War and sought aid from the Soviet Union.
John Kennedy and Cuba
The decade’s political landscape began with a watershed presidential election. Americans were captivated by the 1960 race between Republican vice president Richard Nixon and Democratic senator John F. Kennedy, two candidates who pledged to move the nation forward and invigorate an economy experiencing the worst recession since the Great Depression. Kennedy promised to use federal programs to strengthen the economy and address pockets of longstanding poverty, while Nixon called for a reliance on private enterprise and reduction of government spending. Both candidates faced criticism as well; Nixon had to defend Dwight Eisenhower’s domestic policies, while Kennedy, who was attempting to become the first Catholic president, had to counteract questions about his faith and convince voters that he was experienced enough to lead.
One of the most notable events of the Nixon-Kennedy presidential campaign was their televised debate in September, the first of its kind between major presidential candidates. The debate focused on domestic policy and provided Kennedy with an important moment to present himself as a composed, knowledgeable statesman. In contrast, Nixon, an experienced debater who faced higher expectations, looked sweaty and defensive. Radio listeners famously thought the two men performed equally well, but the TV audience was much more impressed by Kennedy, giving him an advantage in subsequent debates. Ultimately, the election was extraordinarily close; in the largest voter turnout in American history up to that point, Kennedy bested Nixon by less than one percentage point (34,227,096 to 34,107,646 votes).1 Although Kennedy’s lead in electoral votes was more comfortable at 303 to 219, the Democratic Party’s victory did not translate in Congress, where Democrats lost a few seats in both houses. As a result, Kennedy entered office in 1961 without the mandate necessary to achieve the ambitious agenda he would refer to as the New Frontier.
Kennedy also faced foreign policy challenges. The United States entered the 1960s unaccustomed to stark foreign policy failures, having emerged from World War II as a global superpower before waging a Cold War against the Soviet Union in the 1950s. In the new decade, unsuccessful conflicts in Cuba and Vietnam would yield embarrassment, fear, and tragedy, stunning a nation that expected triumph and altering the way many thought of America’s role in international affairs.
The Bay of Pigs
When Kennedy won the presidency, he was eager to establish his own Cold War credentials. As such, he approved an attack by a 1400-member, CIA trained, army of Cuban exiles in April 1961. The invasion turned into a mismanaged disaster.
The poorly equipped rebel forces landed at the swampy Bay of Pigs, and unlike forecasted no discontented rebel forces flocked to their support. Within two days Castro’s army rounded them up. Taking responsibility for the entire fiasco, which had been planned during the Eisenhower administration, Kennedy suffered a bitter humiliation.
The Cuban Missile Crisis
As the political relationship between Cuba and the US disintegrated, the relationship between Cuba and the Soviet Union became closer. In 1962, American spy planes flying over Cuba discovered the construction of missile launching platforms. As Cuba was only 90 miles off the coast of the United States, missiles placed at these locations would be well within range of the nation’s capital. Cuba had allowed the construction of these sites at the behest of the Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Khrushchev was particularly interested in having a strategic threat in place, a check for American missiles that had been placed in Turkey.
The peril of nuclear confrontation became dramatically clear in October 1962. President Kennedy, as part of his Cold Warrior mentality, had repeatedly warned that the US would treat any attempt to place offensive weapons in Cuba as an unacceptable threat. Nikita Khrushchev had promised that the Soviet Union had no such intention, so when the CIA confirmed the existence of the missile sites, he was outraged.
For a week, top security advisors met secretly to plan a response. Military advisors urged air strikes, but Kennedy worried that strikes might trigger nuclear war. In the end, Kennedy chose a more restrained option of imposing a naval quarantine to intercept all military equipment under shipment to Cuba. Then on October 22, he went on television in the United States and announced these actions to the American public. Americans were stunned. Tensions mounted as Soviet ships approached the quarantine.
Meanwhile, Kennedy scrambled to resolve the crisis through diplomatic channels. On October 26, he received a message from Khrushchev agreeing to remove the missiles in return for an American promise not to invade Cuba. The next day, a more troubling message arrived insisting that the US must also dismantle its missile bases in Turkey. Unwilling to strike a deal publicly and be perceived as soft on communism, Kennedy decided to ignore the second letter and accept the offer in the first. When the Soviets agreed, the face-off ended on terms that saved both sides from overt humiliation.
The nuclear showdown prompted Kennedy and his advisors to seek ways to control the nuclear arms race. The administration negotiated a nuclear test ban with the Soviets, outlawing all above-ground nuclear tests. At the same time, Kennedy’s prestige soared for standing up to the Soviets. When Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963, the moves toward conciliation between the United States and the Soviet Union also ended.
Notes
- Michael Levy, “United States Presidential Election of 1960,” Encyclopædia Britannica, November 1, 2018, accessed January 27, 2019, https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-1960.
